noticeable. In this phase S. W. is herself, her own somnambulic ego.
She is fully orientated to the external world, but seems to stand with one foot, as it were, in her dream-world. She sees and hears her spirits, sees how they walk about in the room among those who form the circle, and stand first by one person, then by another. She is in possession of a clear remembrance of her visions, her journeys and the instructions she receives. She speaks quietly, clearly and firmly and is always in a serious, almost religious frame of mind. Her bearing indicates a deeply religious mood, free from all pietistic flavour, her speech is singularly uninfluenced by her guide’s jargon compounded of Bible and tract. Her solemn behaviour has a suffering, rather pitiful aspect. She is painfully conscious of the great differences between her ideal world at night and the rough reality of the day. This state stands in sharp contrast to her waking existence; there is here no trace of that unstable and inharmonious creature, that extravagant nervous temperament which is so characteristic for the rest of her relationships. Speaking with her, you get the impression of speaking with a much older person who has attained through numerous experiences to a sure harmonious footing. In this state she produced her best results, whilst her romances correspond more closely to the conditions of her waking interests. The semi-somnambulism usually appears spontaneously, mostly during the table experiments, which sometimes announced by this means that S. W. was beginning to know beforehand every automatic communication from the table. She then usually stopped the table-turning and after a short time went more or less suddenly into an ecstatic state. S. W. showed herself to be very sensitive. She could divine and reply to simple questions thought of by a member of the circle who was not a “medium,” if only the latter would lay a hand on the table or on her hand. Genuine thought-transference without direct or indirect contact could never be achieved. In juxtaposition with the obvious development of her whole personality the continued existence of her earlier ordinary
